:orphan:

.. index:: glossary

Glossary
========

.. _ecto-greek:

ecto
----
from the Greek *ektos*, meaning "outside".
Think ghostbusters.

.. _DAG:

plasm
-----
from the Greek *plasma*, meaning "something formed or molded"
Think ectoplasm or protoplasm. Leading naturally to slime molds.  The plasm
is the ecto **Directed Acyclic Graph**, or *DAG* for short.

.. _cell:

cell
----
An ``ecto::cell`` is the basic unit of work in the ``ecto::plasm``.


tendril
-------
A tendril is the slender, winding organ of the
ecto::cell that gives it its awesome type erasure and uber
flexibility.

spore
-----

The spore is a typed handle to a tendril.  It acts like a smart
pointer (the star and arrow operators are overloaded).

.. _ectosphere:

ectosphere
----------
A colloquialism that refers to the :ref:`ectosystem` that is a loosely coupled
collection
of ecto cells, modules, graphs, git repositories, and unices.

.. _ectosystem:

ectosystem
-----------
Another colloquialism that imbues the idealogy of an ecosystem, symbiosis, complexity
from entropy, etc...